THE PACK, 263 



This was said to have been accomplished in " over 

 four hours," which probably means anything under 

 five hours. This is just the sort of line where 

 hounds might do a distance of this sort in good time, 

 because it was over land at that time almost entirely 

 unenclosed ; it was rough, grassy land, not heather, 

 and it hardly touched a covert all the way, certainly 

 nothing to cause a check or to stop the pace. 

 There was hardly a chance of rousing fresh deer, and 

 it is extremely probable that they ran the whole way 

 without more of a check than would be due to 

 hunting the water. It is the time lost in checks that 

 throws out all estimates based on the pace at which 

 one seemed to be galloping, and hounds which have 

 the luck to run on without checking may easily 

 cover more distance when going at quite a moderate 

 pace than is accomplished by a series of bursts at 

 top speed. Whatever may have been their luck on 

 this occasion, to have covered the ground specified 

 in anything between four and five hours, they must 

 have been going quite a good pace for a great part 

 of the distance. This run exactly illustrates what 

 was probably the difference between the old pack 

 and the new ; the old pack ran a good pace, quite as 

 fast, perhaps, as the present pack would have done, 

 till the deer broke away over Winsford Hill. The 

 old pack, evidently unable to increase their pace, ran 

 him in view to Red Cleeve, a matter of three miles. 

 No stag, as nearly run up as this one must have 

 been, could possibly have stood up with the modern 



